DA: Jury convicts Jerod Plowden in Freeport slaying

A Queens man faces 25 years to life in prison after a Nassau jury convicted him in the 2011 slaying of a robbery victim outside an abandoned Freeport house, prosecutors said Friday.

It took the jury two days to convict Jerod Plowden, 25, of St. Albans, of second-degree murder and multiple robbery charges, the Nassau County district attorney's office said in a news release.

On the afternoon of April 12, Plowden and another man, Nolan Gaugler, 21, of Mineola, met with victim Moez Hassan, 23, of Queens, outside an abandoned Stevens Street home "under the auspices of buying Xanax pills from him," District Attorney Kathleen Rice said in a news release.

At gunpoint, Plowden and Gaugler robbed Hassan of 75 Xanax pills and about $30, and the victim "was then shot five times, once in the head, chest, and left arm, and twice in the abdomen," prosecutors said.